Tuesday, October 13, 2009

PHILIP GUSTON KNEW HIS SHIT!

I watched the BEST art video ever today. Philip Guston: A Life Lived. And i can't even find it anywhere online. His non-representational stuff i liked. the other stuff i can't really make a judgement on cause i havent seen them in person, but they're kind of cartoony, which he was going after or whatever. BUT just listening to him talk was AMAZING. I wish he didnt die cause i would make him talk to me forever. In the video he talked about everything that ever matters as a painter.

talked about how you have to paint what's real. You can't not paint it or it's fake. You become a wax figure i think is what he said. And he destroyed all the paintings he wasnt happy with. It's not even worth it if you don't make contact with it and have enough of an experience with it. and you KNOW it's good if the painting comes not from you, but through you. he said every other person in the studio disappears, and eventually you disappear and it's just the painting being painted.

i have this post it note above my desk that i wrote "ART IS CONTACT" and i knew i liked it enough to write it down, but i didnt really get it, and now i get it. Art is contact, it's not worth it if it's not. cause it's not real. and by real i mean to the artist. not to anyone else. and you might get shit or criticism for it, but AGH he described it so perfectly. basically you HAVE do it. to survive. otherwise you die.

...................

found this: it's not the whole thing, but some clips from it. the guy talking is kinda boring, but guston talks around 2, 4, & 6 minutes. i'll keep looking for more...